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William Michael BOOT (b.1955)

William Boot was born to Dutch parents in Kincardine Ontario Canada in 1955. He travelled, worked and studied throughout Italy, Australia, Canada and Pacific Islands between 1973 and 2002. As recipient of the inaugural Siemans/RMIT Fine Art Scholarship in 2000, Boot completed his Fine Arts postgraduate study at RMIT University Melbourne before moving permanently to Korea in 2002 to live, teach and work. He has exhibited in Australia, Korea and China and travelled extensively throughout the Philippines, Cambodia, China, Thailand, Japan, Europe, Canada and Australia.

Although encouraged from an early age to embrace his North American culture, Boot was deeply influenced by his Dutch heritage and a strong sense of the classical and ornamental in art. Feelings about other places and times permeated the artist’s dreams and thoughts.

“I could never shake the feeling that other worlds were superimposing themselves on me” reflects Boot.

As a youth, Boot played in his own make-believe world which he fashioned from objects and images around him. His imaginary scenarios were the catalyst for a strong and personal sense of colour, line and composition.

“I have never doubted that there are worlds beyond our reach and understanding and I still make art with this ever present awareness” says Boot.

For Boot, the smell and tacticity of materials played a vital role in his understanding of the strange and unpredictable. His curiosity was piqued by the sense of discovery and the thrill of the challenge. He developed an early fascination for drawing that is with him today. Boot says that whilst he believes his paintings are highly figurative, they are viewed by many as abstract in appearance. “I work with the poetic sensations that intrude into and wash over my life as I live and move through the world”

Boot uses line, colour, space, texture and composition as direct, idiosyncratic interpretations of real life experience. They are the artist’s personal attempt at making sense of things by dealing with issues of beauty, transcendence, transience and the sublime.

“The surfaces often shift between figure and field and although at first glance appear abstract in appearance they always embody the figurative, even when the compositions are in their most reductive state” says Boot.

Although introduced to the encaustic painting process by the painter Marko Koludrovic in 1995 it was not until many years later that Boot began experimenting with its possibilities. In his quest to take his images to another level, he built on the ancient process of mixing hot, liquid wax and pigment paints via contemporary praxis. This method afforded the artist a means to bring a sense of solid visual depth, mystery and stasis to his images.

“My challenge is always; how to bring together ideas, sensations and materials to successfully demonstrate my inner world in concrete visual form” he says. For Boot, simplicity and clarity are always the key objectives his approach to work.

He believes a painting acts as both a mirror glimpse of the elusive or invisible things and a window on the world of visual things. “A painting offers the promise of revelation for the viewer; it cannot be otherwise…revelation is implicit in the paintings imaging function.”

Amongst the many modern and contemporary who have profoundly influenced him, Boots cites Agnes Martin, Aida Tomescu, Bridget Riley, Cy Twombley, Donald Judd, Gerhard Richter, Giorgio Morandi, and Jackson Pollock. William Boot’s work is held in private collections throughout Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and Korea. He commenced a one year residency program in 2010 at "Dunmoochin" in Melbourne Australia. “My paintings are immediately representative of who I am, in essence, as a human being. My work cannot be separated from me!” William Boot.